Gnocchi alla sorrentina ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

Gnocchi alla sorrentina, gnocchi in the style of Sorrento, are a wonderfully simple Italian dish. Sorrento is a town near Naples and the dish itself seems to be a few hundred years old – some sources mention its existence even in the XVIth century! According to the legend, they were invented along with gnocchi themselves,…

Lasagne Bolognese ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

Lasagne are one of the most famous dishes in the world. While in the USA the version with ricotta ismore popular (and originally comes from southern Italy), and several other regional variations exist in Italy, the default Italian (and consequently European) version are lasagne alla bolognese: lasagne sheets, ragรบ alla bolognese (classic Bolognese sauce), bechamel…

Gnudi primavera ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

Gnudi. Maybe you never heard of these fluffy, cheesy gnocchi-relatives. They are Tuscan dumplings made of ricotta, originally the sheep one. The best known version also uses spinach in the dough, an after cooking they are turned in butter with sage. There are more than enough classical gnudi recipes online, but… I attempted something new…

Farfalle alla puttanesca ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

When I am stressed, sometimes making my own pasta can calm me down a bit. At least as long as it is not with more than 200 g flour, i.e. not for more than two persons ๐Ÿคฃ Yesterday I had one of such days so I took 100 g flour, a pinch of salt, an…

Polpete u toฤ‡u ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡ท / polpette al sugo ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

One of the best-loved Dalmatian comfort-food dishes, for most Dalmatians bringing strong memories from childhood days with mom or granny, is polpete u toฤu. Dalmatia is the coastal part of Croatia, directly across Italy on the other side of the Adriatic sea. This is where this dish originally came from: its ‘parent-dish’ is the Italian…

Tortellini alla panna con funghi finferli ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

Yesterday I realised – even if most of my cooking is either Turkish or Italian, and even if Italywas on the Simplon Orient Express route, I still had not publisbed a single Italian recipe! This omissionis hereby now removed ๐Ÿ™‚ Yes, I often make traditional pasta dishes like spaghetti carbonara, or penne all’Amatriciana, or buccatini…

Saltimbocca alla Romana in Trastevere (Rome) ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น

Some of you, my dear readers, might be puzzled about Italian food featuring in this Orient Express themed food blog. Notwithstanding, Italy has the same right to appear in it as has Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia – all of these countries lie on the Simplon Orient Express route, and Hercule Poirot travelled with a Simplon…